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3G Delayed in Japan 44

Posted by Hemos from the not-gonna-get-here-soon dept.
solusthewizard writes " The BBC is reporting that DoCoMo of Japan are delaying the launch of 3G for "further testing". This puts it back to October. Meanwhile, the Isle of Man are up there racing with DoCoMo for the first network. With the Telecomms industry slashing staff and being in so much debt, will Europe or the US ever see this technology? " I think the answer is yes, that this technology will roll out worldwide - but with the amount of debt and other business factors many of the telecoms have, we're going to see a lot of shake-out, IMHO.
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3G Delayed in Japan More

3G Delayed in Japan

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  • Hey, if you want to spend more time fielding e-mail from the office and doing spreadsheets, go ahead. I'd rather read e-mail from friends and play games. And so would most Japanese.

    Seriously, this is one major difference between the usage/marketing of wireless services in Japan and the U.S. There's cell-phone advertising everywhere in Japan, but absolutely none of it is marketed towards the "mobile road warrior" seeking to increase his business productivity and efficiency and all that. It's all about games, and downloading the latest baseball scores, and installing the latest hit songs as the incoming call melody, and sending pictures of yourself with the built-in digital camera.

    It's all about having fun. People don't want more work, they want more fun, that's what they're using technology for, and they're willing to pay for it. What's wrong with that?
  • It's like open source software: a non-technical user won't have a scooby[1] how to configure their phone to do weird things the same way they could hardly hack source, but that's OK, because in both cases it's likely a techie user will already have done it for them, and put it somewhere they can download. So you don't have to understand how to configure your phone to make use of the flexibility.

    Although frankly, if ordinary users are prepared to learn how to text each other, they can't be as put off by the slightly inconvenient and tricky as we've always thought...

    [1] It means "a clue" in Scotland at least.
    --
  • You're forgetting about the government's monopoly on the USE OF FORCE, which in this context is used to extract $BILLIONS in spectrum fees and hike the hell out of airtime costs. Those extortions... er, "fees" also help suppress competition, since not many companies can pull off raising that much capital and still fund a network buildout.

    We'd be in cheap, high-bandwidth nirvana in short order if Big Brother wasn't so damn greedy.
  • 2.5G is packet based as opposed to switch based which is what the current 2G is based on. 2.5G makes more efficient use of spectrum - thus I think that in more congested urban areas, the race to implement 2.5G would be more urgent in order to relieve spectrum issues. From an operator perspective, this also makes sense if many of the incumbents did not receive 3G licenses.
  • Quote wee bit more configurable than their competitors I think you are absolutely right. One of the often mentioned reasons for the success of DoCOMO is that it comes with THICK manual. People like to fiddle with this stuff once they know how to do the basics. In the old day while you waited to board an airplane you looked at your ticket 10 times just to kill the few minutes. Now you can fiddle with your cell phone instead, provided there is enough configurable stuff to fiddle with.
  • In fact, Sprint and Qualcomm recently demonstrated an amazing 2.4 Mbps data transfer speed on a CDMA2000-compliant digital cellular link. This is faster than a T-1 land line.

    Because Sprint's network is all-digital to start with, I won't be surprised at all that the first really useful 3G cellular system will be the Sprint system.
  • Actually, what Sprint and Qualcomm are aiming for in its first release of 3G phones is a much more conservative 384 kilobits per second download speed on mobile operation. That is essentially triple that of ISDN and the same as the most common ADSL connections.
  • Working with European 3G operators it looks like the key players are going to be different from the 2G/2.5G market.

    Nortel and Siemens are winning a lot of network contracts, and handsets appear to be going to new entrants like Sendo, and the Japanese iMode manufacturers... Mitsubishi is pushing the Mondo very hard.

    (And what's most interesting is that the most popular platforms are currently Stinger and Pocket PC - all Microsoft...)

    S.
  • The first large scale 3G implementations will be in the Iberian countries. Both Portugal and Spain had beauty contests, with agressive roll out schedules... targetting late 01/early 02 for 80% coverage...

    In the UK there's much less urgency - the target is 07 for 80% coverage...

    S.
  • 2.5G only adds packet-based data to the existing voice services. Already congested voice spectrum will not be yielded to data services - for example GPRS will back off to a single time slot.

    S.
  • So AT&T owned almost all of the long distance.

    Maybe you weren't around or don't remember, but AT&T was the phone company. There were no local services and separate long distance.

    You definately don't want to go back to that.. unless you like:

    - Paying extra for each phone (and they knew if you had more then you were paying for).

    - Phones were huge and clunky.. why improve them? they worked fine already.

    - You also didn't own your phones, you had to lease them.

    - There was no incentive for service improvements unless it made them more money due to no competition...
    ...etc.

    They did use a lot of the money in bell labs to make some great breakthroughs though.
  • No it wasn't. Your thinking of GPRS which is at best 2.5G. 64K is not 3G.
  • After paying huge sums of money for 3G spectrum allocation in European countries the big ones (Vodafone, Orange-France Telecom, etc.) are commited to building 3G networks. They already have contracts for equipment (that is, massive contracts, not testbeds); however the services won't be available until:
    • 2.5G proves insufficient (this will come fast: GPRS is nice but it just won't do in high-density areas: the GSM spectrum is already filled to capacity with voice)
    • Handsets are available (this is the main industrial delay: base station and network equipment is starting to come out of plants, but handsets are further delayed with time)
    • Investment on 2G/2.5G networks slows down (it's almost done now)
  • Of course, it doesn't help that the frequency band allocated to 3G in Europe is different than the frequency band allocated in the US than the frequency band allocated in Japan ....

    The US protects its cell phone industry, Japan protects its cell phone industry, the Rest-of-the-World (which includes Europe) wins big (compare Nokia and Motorola, for instance)

  • Motorola, while their branding is poor, have the best engineered radio systems, and they have huge amounts of capital

    I know a senior engineer for an European GSM operator, who explained that they dropped Motorola equipment because it kept failing and misoperating. Now they are working with Nokia and Alcatel only.

  • Because Sprint's network is all-digital to start with, I won't be surprised at all that the first really useful 3G cellular system will be the Sprint system.

    Whoa! You mean you still have analog networks in the US ? You have had ample time and money to catch up... and digital networks are still singled-out?

  • radio isn't just handsets - there is the base statio side as well.
    (...)
    I have a Motorola phone and it has never crashed

    Good for you. I was talking about the network equipment (from BSS to HLR), not the handsets. And the Motorola equipment was crappy a couple years ago. Don't know if it still is; anyway they've been marginalized in the GSM backend market.

  • We'll certainly see a 3G launch fairly soon (the telco's have far too much money invested in the system not to launch) but it's probably not going to be as soon as some were initially predicting. Certainly, even post launch it's going to be a fair while until services start to gain mass acceptance, especially since there still seems to be a fair bit of doubt as to what the 'killer-app' which needs 3G type speeds is (any ideas?).

    What this does mean is that there's going to be an increasing focus on getting the most out of 2G and 2.5G systems. Companies such as Pogo [pogo-tech.com] are already claiming 3G type functionality across GPRS networks and with increasing PDA sales, people are beginning to realise (after being put off by WAPs poor marketing) that you can actually do quite a bit with the older systems. Certainly a lot of the proposed 3G tools (Email, Location-based services, Office apps etc) can be done pretty well with a PDA and some clever software.

    The delay also raises the possibility of Wireless LAN technology appearing to fill some of the gap for mobile services of course and if more PDAs/laptops begin to appear with W-LAN capabilities out of the box, I think you'll start to see infrastructure appearing to support them.
  • Moto feeds at all levels. It does not matter who domonates the market. They produce some of the best RF ICs and Xstrs in the buisness. Part of Motos problem is that they are sometimes competing with there customers. They also develope a lot of technology in partnership. This means that the will sometimes enter a market disadvantaged by having to do things different then they would like to. In the long run, this is not a problem but for the short term, it means problomatic equipment. The other historic problem with Moto is its inability to market consumor equipment. It is truley amazing that they have the name recognition that they do. The pagers ubiquitousness was due to quality, price and production rates that totaly swamped any competitors. It had nothing to do with advertisment or marketing prowes.

    I could go on having a little bit more then casual knowledge of the internals of Motorola. But I must finish off some code or else 3G might be farther delayed by lack of test equipment!
  • There are several problems with 3G deployment.

    First, the base station manufacturers don't have the hardware ready to deploy. Among other reasons, they have no good way to test the equipment. 3G uses some very advanced modulation techniques, and you cannot just slap a power meter on the finals and tune for maximum.

    Second, the handset manufacturers are not yet ready with the final version of the handsets. The software protocols are complex, and hard to test.

    Lastly, once the first and second problems are licked, the celluar providers have to roll the systems out. A cell site costs several million [$£]s, and you need lots.

    Of course, it doesn't help that the frequency band allocated to 3G in Europe is different than the frequency band allocated in the US than the frequency band allocated in Japan ....
  • i thought it stood for In My Humble Opinion...
  • IIRC, Sprint PCS's CDMA network has the clearest upgrade path to 3G. Other systems (TDMA, GSM, etc.) will cause the carriers to gut more of their existing infrastructure to deliver 3G bandwidth. Some of the larger EuroGSM carriers are predicting that the US/Japanese carriers will leapfrog the continent while GSM makes the conversion.

    Next question: what types of services will carriers offer over new 3G networks? Figure it will take 2-3 "must have" services to cause the market to make the switch.

    J.
  • 3G will happen. There is far, far too much pride and capital at stake for it to fail (and if it does it will make the present dot.com crash look like a minor hiccup). But it will probably happen like Concorde ... limited roll out and a long time to make any sort of profit. And other solutions (2.5G, i.e. GPRS) will serve the mass market for a long tim to come.

    The market shake out has already started. Ericsson have been really shafted by the sell-off of their handset business to Sony. This will mean that they only have access to one side of the radio stack - not a good position to be in. I suspect Nokia will survive, as will Motorola probably - Nokia has the best branding, and Motorola, while their branding is poor, have the best engineered radio systems, and they have huge amounts of capital. How the other players will fare is tricky. Lucent are in the poo already, and Alcatel are looking weak. Probably we will see more tie ups - Alcatel plus Fujitsu, Siemens plus NEC, Nortel plus who-ever.

    Hold onto your hats, its going to be bumpy!

  • radio isn't just handsets - there is the base statio side as well. I agree that the Motorola handsets are crap - I think they brought in a bunch of American designers who just don't understand the European handset market - that is why Nokia is THE brand. However, I would stand by my point that Motorola do the best radio engineering, especially on the infrastructure side.

    I have a Motorola phone and it has never crashed (but then neither did my old Mitsubishi). But it is ugly, the navigation system is poor, and as for the documentation ... don't even go there!

    best regards
    treefrog
  • You mean you still have analog networks in the US

    Yes, the US still has analog networks in the 800MHz band. Most semi-populated areas have full digital coverage (how they can call it "digital" but still use radio waves is beyond me :-) ). The PCS Band (~1900 MHz) is digital only, and all future pieces of spectrum that is released by the government will be digital only

    As for the post above yours that talks about the 2.4Mb/sec data transfer speed, don't count on it. That is known as a 16x rateset, and it takes up so many resources, that the operators couldn't ever let anyone use that rate set. Also, even if you *could* get that transfer speed, it would only be that fast if you were standing still, when you start moving, your data speed drops considerably.
  • Is that because they don't come with hands free kits, so the driver is more likely to be distracted while answering a phone call?
  • Somehow it's hard to believe that everyone will be able to enjoy the 2Mbps or so promised by UMTS (ie 3G). Sounds realistic for a theoretical maximum, but the total bandwidth per cell is bound to be quite limited.

    Personally, I'd be happy with a permanent 100Kbps connection of GPRS if it worked flawlessly. If there's something good about WAP it is that people learned to appreciate text based interfaces which were the only ones possible through GSM's measly 9600bps. After all the website bloat (which most people still surf at 56k) they realized it's actually possible to exchance textual information without all that graphics.

    I just cannot see why all this hype about 3G. How about getting a decent mobile IP (ie GPRS) working first. Of course that system isn't directly expandable to megabit speeds, but it would give people a taste of mobile IP to see if they want more. Sure it's a cool idea to have wireless video phonecalls, but is it worth paying for? Videophone technology for land networks has been around for ages but hasn't quite caught people's interest.

    Finally, these 'third generation' buzzword mobile networks do not quite fit in my idea of a true wireless Internet, in the sense of freedom an anarchy. For that we'll need WLANs.

    --

  • The 3G rollout in the Isle of Man is supposedly to support the TT race, a week long motor-cyle race that covers a large stretch of major roads on the island.

    However it looks likely that the TT races will be cancelled due to the Foot & Mouth epidemic in the UK, so the 3G rollout will also be postponed.

  • You know: Who cares ?

    Despite the fact that (with notable exception of the US) mobile is the next technological monster application I couldn't care less. Why ?

    3G (UMTS) is planned for mobile broadband applications. Now, I might be a luddite in that respect, but my neato Nokia GSM 6210 phone does just about everything I could expect from a high tech phone booth, weighs considerable less and is exrtremely reliable.

    The only problem when it comes to wireless applications is that phones, by definition, are circuit switching devices. This is addressed with alternative mobile packet switching schemes which permit speed of up to 50kB/s and work very well with GSM phones (GPRS). Oh yeah, and they are available now.

    So, the phone companies - who spendt billions for UMTS licenses - want to tell me that my life is not full without streaming video and - music on the 2" display of my mobile phone (on the price of occasional crashes of course)?

    Well, to tell you the truth: I buy a cinema ticket or switch on the telly, if I want to watch a movie and I crank on the CD player if I'm into listening music and for my part won't spend a fsucking cent to upgrade my phone to a broadband service.

  • solusthewizard, please, take a look at the map. (hint: between Britain and Ireland) So, the Isle of Man is part of Europe, you see...
  • Even though Hemos said 'IMHO', I wouldn't agree that it was honest. He happens to have a large amount of capital invested in British Telecom.

    Anywhere that you can have mass government deregulation, it's a good idea to invest in the telecom company because you know that they will start raping^H^H^H reaping the profits by being a mass monopoly.

  • I can't believe they're even going through with this. The Internet is at risk of bogging down significantly just because thousands of Japanese cell phone owners want to browse sites, check e-mail, and play insipid, Tamagotchi-esque games online. Whatever happened to things like productivity and efficiency? They were thrown right out the window in favor of eye candy and fun diversions. NexTel was good in their implementation of the two-way feature, but all of this "wireless Internet" crap just takes the cake.

    (Oh, and if you're wondering about the subject of this post, it's how you say "Idiot!" in Japanese. I think.)

  • Its actually not part of the UK - just like the Channel Islands - its a crown territory.
  • The ITU (International Telecommunications Union--the standards setting body) has defined 3G as able to support certain data rates (in two phases) AND being deployed in a certain spectrum. Since cdmaOne operators (Sprint, Verizon, all Korean telecom, KDDI in Japan) can upgrade within spectrum (to cdma2000) they do not meet ITU's definition, even though they meet ITU's capability. Of these the Korean operators have already begun to offer cdma2000: Sprint, Verizon, and KDDI are scheduled to offer service later this year. The second phase of cdma2000, called 1xEv will be offered next year and provide 2.4 Mbits peak performance. In addition, Nextel has also said they would upgrade to cdma2000 (while continuing to offer iDEN, its current service.) WCDMA, the European-Japanese variant is delayed. But the world will not wait (although the Europeans may). So 3G technology is alive and well, but in this case upgrades will come before new deployments because of the low cost increase in voice capacity that cdma2000 offers over cdmaOne.
  • This might be slightly pedantic but the article wondered whether 3G would ever hit Europe, now I'm not all that good at geography but I thought the Isle of Man, as part of the British Isles was actually in Europe.


  • Delays in producing the new handsets mean that most consumers across Europe are unlikely to get the new service before 2003.

    So in otherwords, flying cars? Call me impatient, but I've seen bigger and smaller ventures fall much faster then three years. Although this does remind me of a book by Randy Rucker, Freeware (or wetware or software, depending on which one you ppick up) where the 'uuvy' allowed you to contact someone with video and voice. Although without proper marketing, this could fall into abyss, like the first gen vid-phones.

    I hope they planned around the incompatibiltys that plauged the first vid-phones, as it would be a shame for these to go down the drain.

  • We'll see a lot of shakeout in the US Open Source server market. As in everybody.
  • Is that a chick? If so then no, I'd like to get in on the action too.
  • Dunno. IMHG stand for In My Humble Goat though, so I guess you are probably right.
  • So are you going to buy all new servers to run Slashdot when VA gets rid of you Taco?
  • In the old day while you waited to board an airplane you looked at your ticket 10 times just to kill the few minutes. Now you can fiddle with your cell phone instead, provided there is enough configurable stuff to fiddle with.

    And if you're on a "silent airport" you stand a fair chance of missing your plane, too.


    :-P

    Vintermann
  • Those who have invested billions in UMTS licences will get badly burned, mark my words. It's simply a question of the value of the bandwith they provide.

    I have no idea what the prices will look like, but I know (as know all of you I presume) that you will pay for bytes transferred. Now consider: streamed video: who needs it? Stationary picture phones never caught on, why should mobile ones do? especially considering that for the money to send a 30 minute movie you could probably send text for the rest of your life.

    When it comes to phones though, I'll make a prediction. You observe Nokia is the market leader today, attributed to marketing of the brand name. That is so misleading! Nokia is the market leader because they are a wee bit more configurable than their competitors. You can install a little stuff on them.
    My prediction is that the phone that gives the most control to the user will win. It isn't just nerds that want versatility, Nokia proved that. Tomorrows successful phones should basically have the versatility of a PDA: install whatever you like on it. The more the actors try to push their own services, standards or stuff, the less likely they are to succeed.

  • Remember Video On Demand? Video Phones? People don't want or need this technology, it will come not take off until someones worked out the killer app... There's a side-justification here about getting more bandwidth for mobiles, since theres an increasing amount of dropped connections, especially in urban areas... That might be worth it... But the governments buttered the telecomms companies up and shafted them on the licenses. Its also not helping that the Network Management software for the Base Stations was a hack job in the first place, and needs to be rewritten correctly to support 3G... This is another additional cost (and potential delay). But the subtext of 3G is so 1999-2000, where e-commerce and the internet "will solve all our problems." Just a packet switching wireless network now... Smid

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